HAI member Topline, one of the leading Builders Merchant and DIY Buying Groups in our sector,has appeared in The CX Company’s Top 100 Customer Experience (CX) Champions list for the second year running.

The results were announced as part of the annual Customer Experience Report published by The CX Company, which works with Irish B2B and B2C businesses to accelerate the delivery of CX excellence to their customers.

Topline ranked 49th on the list, a 22 place increase from 71st in 2016. This ranking put Topline alongside some of the top retail, digital and supermarket brands in Ireland, and puts them ahead of other hardware retailers B&Q and Woodies who appeared at 50th and 63rd place respectively.

According to the report Topline “took a strong position in the importance of staff. DIY relies heavily on expert advice and questions can often be very specific.” This highlights the importance of product knowledge and training when it comes to staff, particularly in the hardware/DIY industry. This also aligns with the report’s top recommendation to “recruit, train and retain sincere and caring staff”.

Topline CEO, Hugh O’Donnell, commented: “I’m very encouraged that the efforts made by many Topline members and their excellent staff over the past 12 months to deliver an improved experience to their customers have been reflected in the 2017 ranking.”

The Retail sector itself was the most successful with 93% of it’s brands making the Top 100, which this report puts down to “genuine staff” are critically important to business success. The report goes on to say that “companies who want to excel in CX excellence need to act on this and start crowning their staff members.”

Anyone interested in reading the report in full can find it on The CX Company’s website – www.thecxcompany.com.

If you are a hardware retail/merchant business owner and would like to invest further in your staff then contact Aoife at Hardware Association Ireland to find out about our upcoming Customer Service and Sales classroom training.